Every new arrival wants to know if they can survive or live well in Thailand on X thousand baht a month?
It's a difficult question because each person has different needs. However, the following surveys and figures are from teachers actually working here! How much do they earn and what do they spend their money on?. And after each case study, I've added comments of my own.
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Approximate Thai Baht (฿) conversion rates as of 22nd September 2023
฿36 to one US Dollar฿45 to one Pound Sterling
฿39 to one Euro
฿23 to one Australian Dollar
฿0.64 THB to one Philippine Peso
Elijah
Working in Rayong
Monthly Earnings 25,000 - 30,000
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
25,000 is my full-time salary, but if I'm doing private teaching on the side, I can usually net another 5,000 a month.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
I'm living paycheck to paycheck with my current lifestyle.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
Rent costs 7,000 for a semi-detached town house, with another 200 baht on top for village fees.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
Probably gets the chunk of my pay at around 10,000 for the vehicles alone (a bike and a car both on finance). I also set aside 3,000 a month for petrol/gas.
Utility bills
Electricity bills keep on climbing recently, now sitting at around 3,000 a month.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
Whatever gets left behind goes on food.
Nightlife and drinking
Non-existent.
Books, computers
I generally don't read a lot, but when I do its usually from online sources or books from the night markets where they are dirt cheap (10 or 20 baht a piece). I have a cheap desktop from 4 years ago for 10K, internet is 650 baht a month.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
Extra classes and private students keep me alive for the time being.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Definitely food, the necessary ones that'll keep you going and you can't get enough of (I'm looking at you Krapao Moo Khrop).
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
Forsaking everything else (hobbies, nightlife, coffee), 20,000 is survivable with all the necessities. Probably not a life that you'd pursue in a foreign country, but when you don't have a lot of options, something is always better than nothing.
Phil's analysis and comment
Thanks Elijah. "Whatever gets left behind goes on food" is rather a sobering thought isn't it? Two thirds of your salary (even in a good month) goes on rent and running a car and motorcycle. That has to be at the root of the 'month to month' existence but if I were you, I'd firstly try to get a better-paying full-time job, even it's another 5,000 baht a month, and / or develop the private student part of your workload. I never think picking up private work is that difficult if you've got a bit of business acumen, put yourself out there, and earn yourself a reputation as a decent, reliable teacher. Word of mouth goes a long, long way in Thailand when it comes to hiring a private tutor.
Dino
Working in Bangkok
Monthly Earnings 75,000
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
75,000 baht is my full-time salary and for that, I teach 24 x 40-minute periods = 16 hours a week. I teach grades 7,8,9 with a total of 300 students. Plus ten marking events per year.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
15,000.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I live in a 43 sqm studio apartment in the Silom area, which cost 16K per month. It's an older lower-grade apartment and has no swimming pool or fancy lobby.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
A couple of thousand baht a month.
Utility bills
Around 3,700 baht a month. Electric is around 2,500 plus 1,200 for internet and mobile phone.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
28,000 baht a month.
About 2,500 on two grocery shops a month for basic things like bread, milk, cheese etc. No meat or steaks! It's extra if you have lots of toiletries, cosmetics, lotions etc to buy in a given month. I'll spend about 2,500 baht on a weekend, eating out one night, at the movies, etc. Food delivery is 400-700 baht each time. From Monday to Friday, a basic rice and curry is 200-300 baht a day.
Nightlife and drinking
No nightlife or clubbing. Wine starts at 1,500 baht (62$US) and I can't afford it that often. Maybe at weekends with an evening meal at home.
Books, computers
Nothing. My phone is 7 years old and my computer is 8 years old.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
It's pretty basic. I have one good meal out with friends at the weekend but Monday to Friday is super quiet. One luxury would be a foot massage once a month. I have one good holiday a year and an overseas holiday every 3 or 4 years.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Taxis are still cheap and also food courts and street food. Talking to my family back home, everything in Bangkok is now at western prices - a bag of groceries, a bar bill, electricity, etc.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
To survive in Bangkok you need at least 50K a month and that would mean living in a flop apartment and eating meals from 7-11. With a salary of 60,000, you can start to save a bit and go out once a week.
Phil's analysis and comment
28,000 baht is a hell of a food bill Dino! That's getting on for a thousand baht a day. How many takeaways / food deliveries do you have a month? Food and rent are accounting for virtually 60% of your salary. Others may disagree but I think that's quite a cut.
There are a few opinions in your survey I would disagree with. I don't think 50K a month in Bangkok means a flop apartment and meals from 7-11. It won't give you a fantastic standard of living but you could certainly afford an 8-10K rent. And foot massages a luxury? I never have them but aren't they about 150 baht an hour or something?
Gareth
Working in Ayuthaya
Monthly Earnings 45,000
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
45,000 baht is my take home salary from my teaching position at a Thai secondary school in Ayuthaya. I've been working at the same school for four years.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
Generally around 15,000 baht per month.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I share a small townhouse with another teacher from the same school and the rent is 8,000 baht a month, so 4,000 each. We split everything 50/50 from utility bills down to improvements that we know aren't really the landlord's responsibility. The house has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large kitchen and a nice garden and sun terrace. I love living here because there's enough space for two people without ever getting on top of each other.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
Next to nothing. I invested in a fairly spiffy mountain bike and it's about a 5-minute cycle to school. Not much fun during a heavy downpour but it's certainly a great way to stay fit and save money. During the weekends, I'll take it out for a longer ride and explore the province (although I know it pretty well now)
Utility bills
Around 5,000 baht a month. It's fairly high because we both sleep in our respective rooms with the air-con on and we'll turn it on in the living room when we are both at home at the weekend. Water and Netflix come to about 600 baht but I've included that in the 5K.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
I used to eat out at local Thai restaurants and food courts quite often and although it was only 30-40 baht a meal, the portions were too small and I never felt full. Now I've mastered the art of 'Thai food pimping'. I buy a load of cheap chicken and vegetables at the market, cook it all up in one go and then store it in the freezer. Then I buy my Thai meals to take away and add a little bit of my own cooking to basically double the size of the meal. I bet the overall cost of the meal still doesn't break 60 baht. I never touch western food at all. I just got bored with it a long time ago. So I guess my food and supermarket bill comes to around 6K.
Nightlife and drinking
What nightlife is available in Ayuthaya doesn't really appeal to me anymore and despite the bright lights of Bangkok being only an hour or so away, I can rarely / never work up the enthusiasm. I'll have the ocassional bottle of wine or glass of craft beer at home but I'm not the sort to have a fridge full of Leo and just sit and drink myself into a stupor. If I averaged a thousand baht a month, I'd be surprised.
Books, computers
I do enjoy computer games and I probably spend 3-4,000 baht a month on games and computer-related stuff. I'd much rather have a night in with the Playstation than a night on the tiles.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
It's pretty basic. I always say 'I live like a Thai but with a few luxuries thrown in'. And that's just how I like it. I'm all about reducing life to a stress-free minimum and I've gone a long way to accomplishing that.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Food at the market. It's unbelievable how cheaply you can pick up a bunch of asparagus compared to the crazy money they want in the supermarket
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
I can live very comfortably in Ayuthaya on 30K but then again, my needs are few. 30K would be my absolute minimum though. The 45K I earn certainly gives me money on top to treat myself whenever I want.
Phil's analysis and comment
Thanks Gareth. 'Thai food pimping' is something I do as well (adding a bit of your own home-cooked food to flesh out the meagre portion size of a Thai street food take away) That aside, it seems you live happily in Ayuthaya on 45K. 'Living like a Thai with a few luxuries thrown in' is probably a very good way to describe things.
William
Working in Bangkok
Monthly Earnings 75K (after tax)
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
55K salary plus 20K housing allowance for full time teaching in a Satit school (Mon-Fri). There was opportunity to earn more with extra classes at the school, but I valued my free time. It was my first year after gaining QTS back in the UK. I was definitely underpaid for my qualifications but I feel it was a fair salary given my teaching hours and workload.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
Early on, I was saving 40K baht a month, but as my food habits changed, this decreased over the year. By the last month I was probably saving 25K baht/month. I finished the year with 400K baht saved in my Thai account over 12 months which works out to 33K/month. However, this doesn't take into account flights I paid for from my British account though, which included some international trips.
Overall, I'm about £4,000 up for the year which isn't great, hence why I've decided to move on.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
20K Baht month for a 45 square metre condo in an expensive part of Bangkok. It was only 10-minute walk from my school though. I was told by the lady at the bank when I went to deposit my rent every month that it was expensive.
I liked my condo (apart from the horrific noise from traffic 24/7). Back in the UK I was paying £1,000 (all in) a month for an apartment at basement level with limited natural sunlight in a city in the Midlands. So in comparison, Bangkok felt like a bargain.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
I spent 100 baht every week on grab bikes to get to locations where my hobbies were at. I would occasionally get the BTS one stop when I was feeling lazy or it was too hot/rainy to walk. About 1,080 baht/month in total.
Utility bills
From September to December my electricity bills started off very low. It went crazy from January time. Last electricity bill was 1,800 baht/month.
Water - Really cheap like 150 baht month?
Internet - Was set up for me at 680 baht/month.
Sim card - I paid 1,800 baht for the whole year back in August. Never run out of data, but couldn't make phone calls on it. There was never a moment when I had to make a phone call throughout the year.
800 baht month for condo cleaning (I know it could have been cheaper but I didn't mind tipping the cleaning maids for making my condo look brand new.)
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
This is where I spent most of my money. In the first three months I ate a lot at the food courts and was barely spending anything. The novelty wore off, and then the realisation that the food wasn't the best quality. During these three months I was probably spending 10K baht/month on food.
I went through a stage of buying food from Big C to eat at home, but I found that to be just as expensive as buying groceries back in the UK. Especially for my imported fruits such as grapes, avocados, strawberries & apples.
By the end of my time in Bangkok I was probably spending 20K-25K baht/month on food which involved a lot of eating out with a drink. Any normal restaurant that isn't a food court seemed to be 300 baht for food + 100 baht drink.
The impulsive snack buys from 7/11 didn't do my savings (or my waist line) any good though.
I generally felt a lot healthier towards the end of my stay in Bangkok.
Nightlife and drinking
I don't drink alcohol. If I did, I probably wouldn't have saved anything.
Dates would probably cost a couple of thousand baht for food & drinks on at a rooftop bar. My mocktails would cost 200-300 baht/drink. A couple of dates went up to 4,000 baht, which was bruising.
Books, computers
Nothing really. I spent £3 a month on netflix (brought it when living in Latin America years ago), but it so negligible I forget about it. I would cancel it but I wouldn't get Netflix so cheap again.
I should read more, I brought a kindle before coming to Bangkok with the intention of reading more..... good intentions but poor execution.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
Comfortable and stress-free while knowing that my future self would struggle financially if I stayed.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Rent. The housing market in the UK is just broken, and makes it impossible to justify moving back. Next door in my condo building was empty all year. Supply outstrips demands here.
Other than that I don't see Thailand as a cheap country. Even the holidays I went in while living in Thailand weren't cheap. A good hotel in most destination will cost 1,500 - 2,000 baht/night. That quickly eats into your monthly salary.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
50K baht - you could survive but I feel that life wouldn't be much fun.
75K baht - I was comfortable but aware that I wasn't going anywhere fast.
115K baht - I feel like you could start saving some decent money for the future.
I would return to Thailand if I landed a job that paid 130k baht + which with more international teaching experience I hope I will be able to compete for.
I spent 9 years as a TEFL teacher around the world (not in Thailand) and always felt comfortable on my TEFL salary wherever I lived. I wouldn't recommend living in Bangkok on the TEFL salaries I see advertised unless you absolutely have to live in Bangkok.
Phil's analysis and comment
Thank you William. This survey shows just how expensive Bangkok is getting if a teacher can't really make the numbers work on a 75K salary. There was a day when 30K was considered the minimum salary required to work in the capital but those days are long gone. Then a figure of 40-50K became the minimum. Should we be revising that to an even higher number now is the question? A lot of teachers seem to think so!
Christopher
Working in Suphanburi
Monthly Earnings 50,000
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
I teach at a large secondary school in Suphanburi, which is about two hours from Bangkok on a good day. My full-time salary is around 32,000 baht but I bump it up to 50K with overtime and private tuition, which is organised through the school. I taught in Bangkok for several years and was earning about 40-50K during that time. My interest in doing this survey was to highlight the contrast between living in the capital and then moving away.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
Easily 20,000 baht a month, sometimes a good bit more if I don't have any major purchases that month.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I live in a very run-of-the-mill apartment building near the centre of Suphanburi and pay 4,500 baht a month. It's quite an oldish building so doesn't have any of the facilities that newer builds have like gym and swimming pool and co-working spaces etc, but I've made my studio apartment comfortable and it's a nice place to retire to at the end of the day.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
I can walk to school in less than ten minutes but if it's a rainy day, I'll hop on a songthaew. Suphanburi has an excellent public songthaew service that goes up and down the main roads. You can get anywhere in the city for 10-20 baht once you know it all works. This expense probably comes to 100 baht at most.
Utility bills
About a thousand baht a month depending on bhow much I use the air-conditioning but most times I find a couple of good stand-up fans to be enough.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
This is one of the big lifestyle differences once you leave the big bad city and move out to the rural backwaters. You seem to have far more time on your hands, so I enjoy ambling around Suphanburi's main markets and picking up the essentials. I buy and eat a lot of fruit and I eat mainly 'bag meals' where I take them home and heat them up in the microwave. They cost around 40 baht a portion and are excellent value. I don't eat out all that often. Even though Suphanburi has all the western fast food attractions like KFC and McDonalds dotted around the city, I don't find them particularly inviting. And frankly speaking, I moved from Bangkok to get away from all that - the overspending on food. I would say food and supermarket shopping comes in at about 6,000-8,000.
Nightlife and drinking
I'll ocassionally go out for a Friday or Saturday night drink with colleagues but Suphanburi isn't much of a nightlife city. In Bangkok I was doing 20K a month on socializing and little wonder I was skint before the month's end. Here that expense is maybe a couple of thousand.
Books, computers
I subscribe to Netflix (about 400 baht a month) but most of what I want in terms of films and books, I download for free.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
I absolutely love the slower pace of life here with what feels like so many more hours in a day. Bangkok was crushing me. I just couldn't survive there on what I was earning and something needed to change. When a Thai teacher and good friend moved to work at my current school in Suphanburi, he called me up and poached me to go and work there. "At least come out here for the weekend and see what the city has to offer. Then you can make your mind up" So I caught the minivan to Suphanburi one Saturday morning and by Sunday evening, I knew this was the place for me. And it's only a couple of hours from Bangkok if I ever need the bright lights for any reason (not that I do)
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Food at the fresh markets. I can fill up a huge shopping bag with fruit, vegetables and goodies for a few hundred baht..
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
In Suphanburi, you can live well enough on 30K provided you don't spend too much on accommodation and avoid too many late nights out. That extra 20K that I earn means I can put money away for travel, etc. I know it's not a sutainable future though and my plan is to move on in a couple of years. If we're talking about Bangkok, I can't imagine any foreign teacher trying to get by on less than 60K and even then, there would be little money left over at the end of each month.
Phil's analysis and comment
Thanks a lot Chris. Here's a great example of a teacher who found life in Bangkok simply getting too expensive so he moved somewhere quieter, with a slower pace of life and fewer temptations. It sounds like Chris has truly embraced the lifestyle! Well done. 50K obviously goes a hell of a lot further once you remove all those Bangkok temptations.
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